Pain sucks--get over it.

Most, if not all, of you know that I've struggled with pain the majority of my life. Not paper cut kind of pain -- as annoying as that is -- but debilitating, can barely breath, I'm going to puke or pass out kind of pain (may my college profs. forgive me for my lack of hyphens).

People ask me how my back is doing, and it's just too depressing to tell them that it's really my neck, shoulders, hips and entire left leg in addition to my whole back that hurts every day, all day. It even makes its way into my dreams. It's one of the those ongoing issues that seems like Mt. Everest.

However, what God has been telling me is that my pain entitles me to exactly nothing in His presence. It still doesn't even come close to the pain that Jesus went through to purchase my ticket for preferred seats in eternity.

Furthermore, it does not give me the right to grumble, gripe and complain and thus create a negative environment in which my family must live. I am not allowed to whine about it. I cannot keep making excuses to avoid the short-lived pain of working out because it will move me away from the long-term pain with which I currently live. I am not allowed to look forward and worry about what tomorrow will bring. The weight of tomorrow's possibilities will surely bury me alive.

So what can I do? I can pray and pray and pray and pray some more. I can trust that God will answer my prayers in His timing with the perfect (yes, I said perfect) solution--as in it won't be a problem anymore. Will I always have pain? Probably. But it doesn't have to be a problem. How strong is my faith? This is the question whose answer has value. It is this answer I will seek. What about you? What is your Everest issue? Are you ready to take it down?

Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (NIV, emphasis added)